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This post was originally published August 15, 2014. Since then, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made these Turkey and Spinach Baked Tostadas for dinner. This method of baking tostadas has inspired other baked tostadas recipes as well, like these Salsa Chicken and Bean Tostadas and these Slow Cooker Salsa Verde Pork Tostadas.

From August, 2014:

My goal these days is to make one dinner that everyone in my family will eat. It is not easy! As my kids have gotten older, there are foods that they used to like that they no longer like and of course there are foods that one likes and the other does not like. It’s hard to keep track of at times that’s for sure.

For the most part, I don’t tend to make any “special” meals, meaning I won’t make myself crazy by making individual meals driven by pickiness. I do expect my kids to try everything once (or twice, or more…I never give up), but there are some food battles that are just not worth fighting at times. I will, however, try to make our meals where I can leave out certain ingredients or parts of the meal off the plate (more for others). For example…this bean salad I recently made – my son wanted no part of it (that’s fine, he’ll get carrot sticks) and my daughter loves beans but not so much the onions and peppers (no problem, more veggies for me and my husband). I can work with that. Especially when the other part of the meal is something like this recipe for Turkey and Spinach Baked Tostadas that EVERYONE loved (phew!).

This is the kind of recipe I normally don’t think of posting here on the blog. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that most of us are probably in the same situation – busy and trying to feed a family healthy and nutritious meals most of the time. I always feel extra good on the days I accomplish that task so when I make something that works for my family and fits that criteria I will share it here – even if it seems a bit basic. (After 6 years of blogging I have learned that the most basic recipes I’ve shared here on the blog have been the most popular!)

These baked tostadas come together very quickly. I actually cooked up the turkey and spinach mixture earlier in the day which made it even easier to pull together at dinnertime. If you cook your turkey and spinach mixture at dinnertime, make sure it cools down a bit before topping the tortillas to prevent the tortillas from getting soggy.

Make sure you drain your defrosted frozen spinach well before adding it to your pan, if you don’t things might get a little watery but it will eventually cook off. I used my favorite homemade taco seasoning blend from my friend Julie.

Hope your family enjoys these as much as mine did! 🙂

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Click Here to Pin this Taco Rice Bowl recipe!

One thing I’m quickly learning these days is that the more prep I do as far as meals go, the smoother dinnertime is during the week. For instance, when you find yourself with some time to spare over the weekend (or while you are in the kitchen already cooking up something else), go ahead and cook up some brown rice to put in the fridge ready to go for another meal.

I’ve been trying to do that each week and because I did last week, for instance, these Taco Turkey and Black Bean Rice Bowl meals were a breeze to pull together for dinner. Cooking up the brown rice ahead of time freed up some cook time at dinner where I just had to pull together the taco meat and bean mixture while assembling the bowls.

Normally a pound of ground turkey doesn’t go very far for my hungry family of 5. I stretch it a bit by bulking it up with black beans, chopped red pepper and onion as it browns. Four out of 5 of us love black beans so adding them to our taco meat is always a more economical (and healthier) option in my book.

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This post is sponsored by Fisher Nuts.

Every time I walk past the seasonal squash display in the produce section I have to grab a couple of something. Until I cooked up this Stuffed Acorn Squash recipe a couple of weeks ago my counter was filled with a family of acorn squash, delicata squash and old reliable, spaghetti squash. It’s a good thing they have a pretty decent counter life because I’ve been more of a collector than a cooker lately so it took some time to finally getting around to baking them up.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the acorn squash though. I have prepared Stuffed Acorn Squash before and I absolutely love it. This stuffing is filled with crumbled Italian chicken sausage, kale, walnuts and grated Parmesan cheese – so simple and so delicious when you scoop up a bite with the sweet squash. Sausage and kale are a match made in heaven and adding crunchy walnuts to the mix just put it over the top. I’m very texture driven so I loved the crunch from the walnuts, along with the earthy nutty flavor.

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As much as I try, I don’t always leave the grocery store with everything on my list. There are things I forget, and there are things I add on. There are always things I add on. I have trouble walking through the produce section and not leaving with a good amount of extra produce that I have absolutely no official plans for, but couldn’t resist picking up and putting in my cart. Poblano peppers, I haven’t purchased them in forever and there was no way I was going home without them when I saw them the other day.

There were a few things I had in mind for these poblano peppers. I wanted to add them to this Summer White Chicken Chili. I also wanted to remake this Kicked Up Cucumber Salad from years ago.

Instead, the idea for stuffing them came into mind and I went with it. So glad, because these Stuffed Poblano Peppers turned out amazing and fed me some easy lunch for a couple days I made them for dinner. (more…)

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February Feels

If there is something that I’m learning about myself over time is that I am a creature of habit and routine. Routine brings me comfort and a sense of balance I guess you can say, as well as sanity. During seasons of transition, like a new school year or after a holiday, I don’t feel “right” until I’ve established some sort of schedule aka routine aka positive habits. (It is all relative in my book.)

January felt a bit like a season of change for me. Our holiday break lingered, we went through some family surgeries and recovery, and it was the start of new year in general. In all honestly, I was feeling a bit of a funk. My work at home schedule has been all over the place for a couple of months now, as well as my gym schedule. Let’s just say, I do not function well with “all over the place”. So here’s to February and reestablishing routines, ok?

How am I reestablishing routines?

Scheduled Time To Exercise

Well, to start, I’m getting myself back in the gym at 5am. I started early morning workouts 2 years ago and I have to say, they have been life changing for me. Over the last 6 months I’ve found myself waking up later and later and not getting myself to the gym in the mornings (telling myself I’ll work out later). As painful as it is to hear my alarm go off at 4:15am, the feeling of satisfaction and well being I have when I’m driving home before sunrise is like no other. I need that feeling bottled up as a reminder for those mornings when I just want to snooze.

Time Management

Other ways I’m working on my positive habits and routine is regularly writing and checking my calendar /planner, putting together loose meal plans, making sure I’m getting enough sleep (as well as self care in general), decluttering a few times a week and practicing yoga once a week. These are all actions that put me in a better place and help me become a better mom/wife/person in general.

Meal Planning

Meal planning has never been my strong suit, but I try to write out 3 or 4 healthy dinner ideas before I go grocery shopping after looking at what our schedule is for the week. What I’ve found that I do well with is having several go-to “recipes” that I know I can pull together without a ton of effort each week with our regular pantry, refrigerator and freezer items. These include a variety of healthy crockpot meals, sheet pan dinners and skillet meals.

For the most part most of these recipes can easily handle a seasonal produce swap so they are more like a formula to follow, and one that works because I already know (most) of my family will like what I’m making for dinner.

Here are 10 dinner recipes I make over and over for my family – these are healthy dinner recipes that taste good and are my “old reliables” I like to call them – I’d love to hear about yours!

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Like this healthy pesto pasta with turkey recipe? Pin it here!

I love connecting with other moms in the same “season” as me. With having 2 kids ages 12 and 9 along with a toddler age 3, I sometimes feel like I’m straddling in between two different worlds off motherhood. If you have kids in the older elementary school/middle school age that are active in sports and other activities, then you probably understand what I mean when I say weeknights have become quite the juggling act between homework, dinnertime and practices. I absolutely love that my kids are involved in sports and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

I find that most moms sitting at their kids’ practices usually have dinner on their mind and it always comes up in conversation. We are all trying to figure out how to get everyone fed in the easiest, healthiest way possible and get to where we need to go. That is the reality we are in and I have a feeling this season will fly by, just like the others have (until I have to do it all over again with the little guy!).

 

A photo posted by Aggie Goodman (@aggieskitchen) on Oct 27, 2016 at 2:02pm PDT

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Skillet meals (also known as one-pan meals) are slowly but surely becoming my new BFF. What’s not to love about a good skillet meal, especially during the week when you getting home from work late and/or have kids to feed quickly before or after volleyball or basketball practice. I know I’m not the only one trying to figure out this dinner game during the week so I’m hoping this skillet meal gives you a no-brainer option to try out soon.

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This Turkey and Black Bean Burritos recipe was created for Bush’s Beans.

My kids were introduced to Chipotle burritos within the last year and they are completely hooked – my son in particular. It’s fun to see them order something other than a cheese quesadilla when we are out for Mexican so I’m happy they picked burritos because it’s given me another family meal idea to work with at home (we make a lot of quesadillas and tostadas already).

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One big thing I’ve been doing lately is trying to cook from my cookbooks more. I have a huge cookbook collection that I covet, yet sadly they are just sitting pretty on a shelf in my kitchen the last couple of years. How did that happen? (The internet, that’s how). Well, things are changing. My kids have heard me talk about how I miss cooking from my cookbooks and they’ve been pulling some off the shelves and onto the kitchen table lately so that we can look through them and find something to try. This has been fun for all of us!

I bought this cookbook last year when it came out – Aarti was one of my FAVORITE Next Food Network Star contestants and I watched her show regularly after she won her season (did she win her season? I can’t remember now). Total sadness that it is no longer on air. My daughter loved her show too, and my husband and I pretty much were introduced to Indian food because of her (LOVE). This recipe for Kheema comes from her cookbook and made it to our meal plan this past week. We loved it.

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